Gene can barely hear Tony and Akito over the heartbeat pounding in his own ears as he tries to process what he's seeing, and Malicant takes this opportunity to sweep out with one hand, sending a pulse of shield energy from the purple ring on the replica's finger. "This is family business," she snarls, and the pulse knocks Tony and Akito back and into more Tong ninjas, and a few shadowy Makluans join the fray. Malicant's spending a lot of energy on these mooks, and the aliens won't be quite so hard to take down as the ninjas. The shade returns her attention to Gene. "Look, even the necromancer is gone, abandoning you just like the rest." He doesn't dare to look to confirm, but it hurts to even hear. "They will leave you, my son. They will always leave you. Only I will be here for you, forever."
The sword has almost fallen from Gene's hand; his face is ashen, his expression warring between anguish and loathing. Anguish for the mother he'd lost so young to treachery; loathing for the vile being wearing her form as it has worn so many others. Anguish for what he knows he has to do, and loathing for knowing that he's going to carry it out, if he can find the strength of his arm to do so.
He's frozen in place, and his throat's stuck. Malicant's done it, the son of a bitch has done it, it's found the one thing that Gene can't fight. Gene would fight Tony - he's done it before, and often, and the fact that the genuine article was in the cavern would make things a little easier for him to deal with, easier to convince himself that this fight isn't real. But Malicant's too clever for that, and has decided to attack Gene's resolve in multiple stages. The form of Zhang would serve to get his blood up, the myriad visions and bad dreams would serve to fill him with doubt, but his mother? Ah, Gene could never harm his mother, the mother who'd become the reason for his lifelong quest, Queen-Regent and martyred Madonna and cunning general all in one.
He'd never hurt her. He'd die before he'd hurt her. And Malicant knows this.
But he can't do what she's told him to do; this is an order he cannot possibly obey. He's a soldier, she'd molded him into a soldier who would follow her whim and her whim alone, and he's only managing to defeat this programming by sheer force of will and remembering that it's not her, it's never been her, it's only Malicant.
"Assume your mantle," Malicant says with her voice, command and persuasion infusing it. "Accept your destiny, Temujin. Cast aside your weakness, your folly. Cease your womanly behavior that shames you and shames us all. Become the Mandarin, the true Mandarin, and destroy all who would oppose you."
"I won't," he manages to croak out. "I can't." He raises the sword again in a defensive position, but it's easy to see his grip on it is not as assured as it once was, and his hands are shaking with the effort. "Not again."
Her voice goes soft, dangerous. "You would toss aside all that we worked for? What I made you? You would betray me again?"
His stance falters. "I never betrayed--"
"You failed to warn me of your dream," she says, and the dark shadows of bruises flicker into being on her neck, bruises consistent with strangulation by the hands of a larger, stronger man. Zhang's hands. In the background, around them, the nightmare of murder plays itself out for all to see, the nightmare Gene had never witnessed himself but known enough about her death to have his imagination fill in the gaps, the nightmare that had woken him screaming for years in his childhood. "You knew he would do this."
"I knew we were in danger. I didn't know details. I couldn't know details. That's not how it works." That's not how his true dreams have ever worked. They're arcane and symbolic and never clear, and it only makes sense that they're a topic of contention here, in the Dreaming. Behind them for all to see, larger than life, a black snake and a red mongoose fight, and the mongoose appears to be victorious before the snake coils around it and strikes again and again and again until its foe is crushed and poisoned and defeated. And then the snake moves on to the mongoose's pup, and the dream - the prophecy, the nightmare - vanishes.
"You could have stopped him."
"I was a child!" he shouts, raising his guard again, and it's not clear if he's aiming to silence this apparition of Jin Ying or the guilty, sibilant whispers of his own mind that had repeated the accusation day in and day out for the past thirteen years. "I could do nothing but cower and hide from him in that armor, and bide my time until I was old enough and strong enough to take your ring back from him!"
"And yet he lives." She arches an eyebrow. "I did not raise a merciful son. Why is Zhang still alive?"
Her accusation rings in the silence; Gene has no answer that would satisfy this shade, no answer that would satisfy himself. I was scared, mother. Five rings and I was still afraid of him.
"You have become weak, surrounded by the weak. You have blended in too well, my son, and now it is time to come home." She extends a hand to the tense, trembling boy before her. "Join me. We will make you strong again. We will make you feared. No one will ever dare to raise a hand to you again, I swear it."
For a moment - for one moment, and he loathes himself intensely for it - he thinks about taking it.
But it's not her. As much as he would want his mother to come and take him away, she never would. She's dead, she's been dead for most of his life. This isn't her. This is Malicant. It's a trick. It's just a trick, and nothing more. He takes a breath, then another. "No."
Her hand drops away, a flash of cold anger showing in her eyes. "So be it. Then you are not my son." And she raises her hand again, now bearing a sword, a liuyedao, a saber meant for cutting, and brings it down on Gene's own blade.
The vibration of the swords ringing together makes his arm hurt, but he keeps in position, sweeping his blade up and around while stepping back, moving the heavier sword off of his guard.
He doesn't want to fight her, and Malicant knows that. He will be fighting an enemy that will not tire, that will stop at nothing to have him either turned willingly to Malicant's side or dead. And the enemy is wearing the face of the one person whose loss has hurt Gene the most.
lmk if this isn't okay :V
The sword has almost fallen from Gene's hand; his face is ashen, his expression warring between anguish and loathing. Anguish for the mother he'd lost so young to treachery; loathing for the vile being wearing her form as it has worn so many others. Anguish for what he knows he has to do, and loathing for knowing that he's going to carry it out, if he can find the strength of his arm to do so.
He's frozen in place, and his throat's stuck. Malicant's done it, the son of a bitch has done it, it's found the one thing that Gene can't fight. Gene would fight Tony - he's done it before, and often, and the fact that the genuine article was in the cavern would make things a little easier for him to deal with, easier to convince himself that this fight isn't real. But Malicant's too clever for that, and has decided to attack Gene's resolve in multiple stages. The form of Zhang would serve to get his blood up, the myriad visions and bad dreams would serve to fill him with doubt, but his mother? Ah, Gene could never harm his mother, the mother who'd become the reason for his lifelong quest, Queen-Regent and martyred Madonna and cunning general all in one.
He'd never hurt her. He'd die before he'd hurt her. And Malicant knows this.
But he can't do what she's told him to do; this is an order he cannot possibly obey. He's a soldier, she'd molded him into a soldier who would follow her whim and her whim alone, and he's only managing to defeat this programming by sheer force of will and remembering that it's not her, it's never been her, it's only Malicant.
"Assume your mantle," Malicant says with her voice, command and persuasion infusing it. "Accept your destiny, Temujin. Cast aside your weakness, your folly. Cease your womanly behavior that shames you and shames us all. Become the Mandarin, the true Mandarin, and destroy all who would oppose you."
"I won't," he manages to croak out. "I can't." He raises the sword again in a defensive position, but it's easy to see his grip on it is not as assured as it once was, and his hands are shaking with the effort. "Not again."
Her voice goes soft, dangerous. "You would toss aside all that we worked for? What I made you? You would betray me again?"
His stance falters. "I never betrayed--"
"You failed to warn me of your dream," she says, and the dark shadows of bruises flicker into being on her neck, bruises consistent with strangulation by the hands of a larger, stronger man. Zhang's hands. In the background, around them, the nightmare of murder plays itself out for all to see, the nightmare Gene had never witnessed himself but known enough about her death to have his imagination fill in the gaps, the nightmare that had woken him screaming for years in his childhood. "You knew he would do this."
"I knew we were in danger. I didn't know details. I couldn't know details. That's not how it works." That's not how his true dreams have ever worked. They're arcane and symbolic and never clear, and it only makes sense that they're a topic of contention here, in the Dreaming. Behind them for all to see, larger than life, a black snake and a red mongoose fight, and the mongoose appears to be victorious before the snake coils around it and strikes again and again and again until its foe is crushed and poisoned and defeated. And then the snake moves on to the mongoose's pup, and the dream - the prophecy, the nightmare - vanishes.
"You could have stopped him."
"I was a child!" he shouts, raising his guard again, and it's not clear if he's aiming to silence this apparition of Jin Ying or the guilty, sibilant whispers of his own mind that had repeated the accusation day in and day out for the past thirteen years. "I could do nothing but cower and hide from him in that armor, and bide my time until I was old enough and strong enough to take your ring back from him!"
"And yet he lives." She arches an eyebrow. "I did not raise a merciful son. Why is Zhang still alive?"
Her accusation rings in the silence; Gene has no answer that would satisfy this shade, no answer that would satisfy himself. I was scared, mother. Five rings and I was still afraid of him.
"You have become weak, surrounded by the weak. You have blended in too well, my son, and now it is time to come home." She extends a hand to the tense, trembling boy before her. "Join me. We will make you strong again. We will make you feared. No one will ever dare to raise a hand to you again, I swear it."
For a moment - for one moment, and he loathes himself intensely for it - he thinks about taking it.
But it's not her. As much as he would want his mother to come and take him away, she never would. She's dead, she's been dead for most of his life. This isn't her. This is Malicant. It's a trick. It's just a trick, and nothing more. He takes a breath, then another. "No."
Her hand drops away, a flash of cold anger showing in her eyes. "So be it. Then you are not my son." And she raises her hand again, now bearing a sword, a liuyedao, a saber meant for cutting, and brings it down on Gene's own blade.
The vibration of the swords ringing together makes his arm hurt, but he keeps in position, sweeping his blade up and around while stepping back, moving the heavier sword off of his guard.
He doesn't want to fight her, and Malicant knows that. He will be fighting an enemy that will not tire, that will stop at nothing to have him either turned willingly to Malicant's side or dead. And the enemy is wearing the face of the one person whose loss has hurt Gene the most.
The smart money's on Malicant.